FLIGHT OPPORTUNITIES COMMUNITY OF PRACTICE WEBINAR
Leveraging Iterative Flight Testing to Advance Dust Sensor to Aid in Lunar Landings
Speakers
- Adrienne Dove, Ph.D., University of Central Florida
- Philip Metzger, Ph.D., University of Central Florida
- Sean Bedford, Director of Business Development, Astrobotic
February 7, 2024
Abstract
Researchers from the University of Central Florida will speak about Ejecta STORM (Sheet Tracking, Opacity, and Regolith Maturity) – an instrument designed to measure the size and speed of surface particles kicked up by the exhaust from a rocket-powered lander on the Moon or Mars. During this webinar, they will explore how they embraced the Flight Opportunities program’s “fly, fix, fly” ethos to advance their plume-surface interaction technology – from a 2020 flight campaign to a 2023 series of flight tests on Astrobotic’s Xodiac rocket-powered lander. In discussion with Flight Opportunities, researchers and Astrobotic will share valuable lessons learned on iterative flight testing to mature a technology that could reduce risk for lunar landings.
Download the slides
Speaker Bios
Dr. Adrienne (Addie) Dove is a planetary scientist and associate professor in the Department of Physics at the University of Central Florida (UCF). She received her B.S. in physics from the University of Missouri and her Ph.D. in astrophysics and planetary science from the University of Colorado. She is passionate about space and space exploration (both human and robotic) and educating people about science and exploration. In July 2017, she was awarded the Susan Niebur Award Early Career Award by the NASA Solar System Exploration Virtual Research Institute (SSERVI) for her contributions to the science and exploration communities. Addie’s experience with Flight Opportunities began during her post-doctoral studies, and she has subsequently received multiple awards for Flight Opportunities-supported flight tests. She is also the chair of the Space (Suborbital) Applications Researchers Group (SARG), a science and researcher advocacy group with the Commercial Spaceflight Federation (CSF). She guides young researchers on how to effectively leverage suborbital flight tests to advance their own research endeavors.
Dr. Philip Metzger is a planetary physicist with the Planetary Science faculty at the University of Central Florida, developing what he calls “Economic Planetary Science” to help humanity’s expansion beyond Earth. He has 30 years’ experience at NASA first as an engineer and then as a physicist, developing and operating spaceflight technologies. He co-founded the NASA KSC Swamp Works, a research and development lab modeled after the Skunkworks and implementing innovation practices borrowed from Silicon Valley. The Swamp Works focuses on technologies for planetary surfaces including mining, manufacturing, and construction using space resources. He performs research related to solar system exploration: predicting how rocket exhaust interacts with extraterrestrial soil, investigating the mechanics of soil, characterizing lunar and Martian soil simulants, modeling the migration of volatiles on airless bodies, etc.
Sean Bedford is Astrobotic’s director of business development with primary responsibility for its Propulsion & Test Department. Astrobotic is a lunar and space logistics company based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, that provides full-service, end-to-end payload delivery to the Moon using its lunar landers and rovers. Prior to joining Astrobotic, Sean served as General Counsel for Masten Space Systems after working as an intellectual property litigator for the law firms of Alston & Bird and Finnegan, Henderson, Farabow, Garrett & Dunner. He is a registered patent attorney and has previously represented clients in a wide range of litigation and intellectual property prosecution matters. Sean earned his B.S. in aerospace engineering from Georgia Tech in 2010. After graduating from Tech, he attended the University of Florida Levin College of Law and received his J.D. in 2014.
